Simming ahead as commish

[jDaveMc1984]

What does everyone think about simming ahead for what-if scenarios in online leagues? Yay or Nay?


For clarification, this is not to get pure ratings on players, but to perform strategy analysis for your team. Getting the pure ratings for players (say a 1 star prospect that will develop into a 5 star player), I believe, would require simming over a decade a few hundred times, and I don't know who has that much time on their hands.

[USF]

Originally Posted by jDaveMc1984

What does everyone think about simming ahead for what-if scenarios in online leagues? Yay or Nay?


For clarification, this is not to get pure ratings on players, but to perform strategy analysis for your team. Getting the pure ratings for players (say a 1 star prospect that will develop into a 5 star player), I believe, would require simming over a decade a few hundred times, and I don't know who has that much time on their hands.

Big NAY in my books. Is that how they do it in real life? I would call that cheating myself. My 2 cents.

[jDaveMc1984]

Originally Posted by USF

Big NAY in my books. Is that how they do it in real life? I would call that cheating myself. My 2 cents.

Teams do what-if scenarios all the time in real-life. They're constantly simulating their seasons to see what will happen if x happens, yes?

[USF]

Originally Posted by jDaveMc1984

Teams do what-if scenarios all the time in real-life. They're constantly simulating their seasons to see what will happen if x happens, yes?

Please share some examples.

[jDaveMc1984]

Originally Posted by USF

Please share some examples.

You don't think MLB Teams are using simulation software to strategize?

https://imaginesports.com/news/evolu...imulation-game

[byzeil]

In real life they may try to figure out how things might come out, they might even plug their teams into OOTP which would be fine, but they don't run the players out there ahead of time, multiple times, to see how things go which is what you are suggesting (since our players/teams/leagues are actually in OOTP that is what you would be doing).

A commish doing this in an online league is very blatantly cheating and will not have a league for long when he is caught. Even if we bought into the 'they do it in RL' as you say everyone in the league would need to have the ability to sim ahead under their own parameters for it to be even remotely fair.

[jDaveMc1984]

Originally Posted by byzeil

In real life they may try to figure out how things might come out, they might even plug their teams into OOTP which would be fine, but they don't run the players out there ahead of time, multiple times, to see how things go which is what you are suggesting (since our players/teams/leagues are actually in OOTP).

A commish doing this in an online league is very blatantly cheating and will not have a league for long when he is caught. Even if we bought into the 'they do it in RL' as you say everyone in the league would need to have the ability to sim ahead under their own parameters for it to be even remotely fair.

I actually wouldn't have a problem with other GM's being able to sim ahead. The simulation is never the same twice.

Also, in effect, simming ahead is in all actuality simulating you simulation. Your "real" players are the ones that play the actual sim that gets exported to the league file.

[byzeil]

Originally Posted by jDaveMc1984

I actually wouldn't have a problem with other GM's being able to sim ahead. The simulation is never the same twice.

Well, if you can find enough GMs for a league who all think it is fine then it would be fine, your game your way, but for myself and I would guess most online players it would be a no no.

[Hrycaj]

I feel that this is a clear exploit. Even when real life teams use simulators I find it very hard to think that they make long or short term decisions on players based on the results. So one might think I'm making an argument for simming ahead for that very reason but I am not.

For as great as PECOTA may seem it is wrong a whole lot. I would imagine it always updates to keep up with the human element that it can't predict. If I started an OOTP season in 16, play it through to the start of the 2017 season and then open a new game I created in 17 and compared. I think you would find that the ratings are not even close to the same for a number of players. That's because ratings are always updated with each new version of OOTP.

However, one of the beauties of OOTP is that if you can keep your settings the same and repeat the same season over and over and see very similar results over time. It is really cool to see how each season played in it's own vacuum offer similar results over time if you have the settings set the same. (Low TCR, injuries low)

Now most online leagues play with a very small amount of variance. Hard to find a league that is willing to go real high on TCR and pair it with realistic modern day injuries. Human GM's in online leagues want their first round picks to be studs and they don't want injuries. That's fine. However, also very easy to re-create to get a sense of which players will preform, which makes it a severe exploit in my mind.

This is especially the case in stats-only leagues where the challenge is greater. Bigger the challenge=bigger the exploit. Just my 2 pennies.

[Sweed]

It is cheating, there is no other answer.

[jDaveMc1984]

How, exactly, is it cheating, if no Sim is exactly the same?

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[jDaveMc1984]

Originally Posted by Hrycaj

I feel that this is a clear exploit. Even when real life teams use simulators I find it very hard to think that they make long or short term decisions on players based on the results. So one might think I'm making an argument for simming ahead for that very reason but I am not.

For as great as PECOTA may seem it is wrong a whole lot. I would imagine it always updates to keep up with the human element that it can't predict. If I started an OOTP season in 16, play it through to the start of the 2017 season and then open a new game I created in 17 and compared. I think you would find that the ratings are not even close to the same for a number of players. That's because ratings are always updated with each new version of OOTP.

However, one of the beauties of OOTP is that if you can keep your settings the same and repeat the same season over and over and see very similar results over time. It is really cool to see how each season played in it's own vacuum offer similar results over time if you have the settings set the same. (Low TCR, injuries low)

Now most online leagues play with a very small amount of variance. Hard to find a league that is willing to go real high on TCR and pair it with realistic modern day injuries. Human GM's in online leagues want their first round picks to be studs and they don't want injuries. That's fine. However, also very easy to re-create to get a sense of which players will preform, which makes it a severe exploit in my mind.

This is especially the case in stats-only leagues where the challenge is greater. Bigger the challenge=bigger the exploit. Just my 2 pennies.

In that regard you are correct, except you need to Sim ahead almost a decade a few hundred times to see which guys pan out consistently and which one dont. I don't know who has that much free time, and you certainly can't get that information from summing ahead one season and only looking at your MLB team

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[GoPedro99]

it is cheating solely because you could, not that you necessarily would, but you could easily gain access to the true player ratings.

[jDaveMc1984]

Originally Posted by GoPedro99

it is cheating solely because you could, not that you necessarily would, but you could easily gain access to the true player ratings.

So it's cheating because you could use it to cheat?

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[jDaveMc1984]

Originally Posted by GoPedro99

it is cheating solely because you could, not that you necessarily would, but you could easily gain access to the true player ratings.

And if you're NOT I using for such a reason is it still cheating?

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[jpeters1734]

I think if you're using it to perform strategy analysis on your team, you enter cheating territory. There's a couple reason's why it's different from what real teams do.

First if you're the only one that can perform "strategy analysis", then it's an advantage.

Second, real teams have real players. They are not based on numbered ratings. OOTP is a game based on numbered ratings. Simming your game to perform analysis is the same thing as if the Yankees had a time machine that they, and only them, could use to reset the season after they play it out a few times.

If you assert that 100 different sims will end up 100 different ways, why do it in the first place? Why open yourself to that kind of scrutiny?

[ThePretender]

....

[jDaveMc1984]

Originally Posted by jpeters1734

I think if you're using it to perform strategy analysis on your team, you enter cheating territory. There's a couple reason's why it's different from what real teams do.

First if you're the only one that can perform "strategy analysis", then it's an advantage.

Second, real teams have real players. They are not based on numbered ratings. OOTP is a game based on numbered ratings. Simming your game to perform analysis is the same thing as if the Yankees had a time machine that they, and only them, could use to reset the season after they play it out a few times.

If you assert that 100 different sims will end up 100 different ways, why do it in the first place? Why open yourself to that kind of scrutiny?

I totally agree on if I'm the only one, so I'm with you there. Although I really wouldn't have had a problem if people could sim ahead themselves for a season. It's just gauging how you did in the offseason to me.

Second, real teams have real players. They are not based on numbered ratings. OOTP is a game based on numbered ratings. Simming your game to perform analysis is the same thing as if the Yankees had a time machine that they, and only them, could use to reset the season after they play it out a few times.

Not necessarily. Your "real" players in OOTP are the ones that are in the actual sim. Simming ahead is essentially simulating the simulation. And I wouldn't sim ahead to get a desired result, but to gauge my team, something I wouldn't have any issue with if other GM's could do the same.

If you assert that 100 different sims will end up 100 different ways, why do it in the first place? Why open yourself to that kind of scrutiny?

My experience is pretty fresh in my head (it happened yesterday). I actually simmed ahead just for fun to see how the team I built that offseason would do in one random sim. It didn't really occur to me that someone would go "okay.... now to sim another 100 times to see which prospects develop! MUAHAHA!". That just seemed idiotic to me, as there are much smarter ways to cheat that way that I wouldn't do

So honestly I didn't expect any scrutiny, which is why I posted about it in my leagues Slack. Little did I know that a ****storm would ensue!

[jpeters1734]

So if the Yankees had a time machine, you wouldn't consider that cheating?

[jDaveMc1984]

Originally Posted by jpeters1734

So if the Yankees had a time machine, you wouldn't consider that cheating?

You're assuming that simming ahead is like using a time machine, which isn't the case. It's literally simulating the simulation. If I were to actually know what would literally happen in my league, I would need a time machine myself, not the OOTP program.

So simming ahead is not like the Yankees using a time machine.